


Outtakes

by rednihilist



Series: Colin Luthor 'Verse [2]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednihilist/pseuds/rednihilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: 'Smallville' and certain characters belong to DC Comics, and Miller-Gough et al., respectively.</p><p>'Batman' and certain characters belong to DC Comics, and Warner Bros., respectively.</p><p>A/N: Here's a small something that never made it into the story. It's the missing scene between Lin and Bruce, while Lex is away at the custody hearing. It doesn't really add anything to the overall plot and isn't especially illuminating in terms of characterization. I never trashed it, though, and maybe you'll find it interesting. </p><p>What I was aiming for with this was the first real tendril of the World's Finest. . .</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: 'Smallville' and certain characters belong to DC Comics, and Miller-Gough et al., respectively.
> 
> 'Batman' and certain characters belong to DC Comics, and Warner Bros., respectively.
> 
> A/N: Here's a small something that never made it into the story. It's the missing scene between Lin and Bruce, while Lex is away at the custody hearing. It doesn't really add anything to the overall plot and isn't especially illuminating in terms of characterization. I never trashed it, though, and maybe you'll find it interesting. 
> 
> What I was aiming for with this was the first real tendril of the World's Finest. . .

As Bruce settled more fully into the chair, there was a knocking at the office door. Looking up from another stack of forms demanding his signature, he called out for whoever it was at the door. "Come in!"  
  
He'd expected Alfred, not Colin, and surely not Colin with something suspiciously like anxiety all over his face.

"Am I interrupting?" the boy asked quietly, still hovering by the door.  
  
"No," Bruce was quick to answer, "not at all." He took in the papers before him on the desk and then looked back over at Colin. "Just some paperwork. Nothing that can't wait."  
  
Colin nodded seriously, his eyes dropping down to stare at the floor or his own shoes or a chair leg, anywhere but at Bruce. And while he seemed distinctly nervous, he wasn't exactly fearful, which Bruce took for a good sign.   
  
"Colin," he finally said, after another minute passed in awkward silence, "is there something you wanted to speak to me about?" The boy's head came up and Bruce continued. "You're welcome to just sit and stay if you're looking for company, but I don't get the impression that's why you're really here." He quirked his lips at the end, trying to lighten the mood.  
  
Colin quirked his own lips back at him and then moved forward to sit in the chair across the desk from Bruce. He was making eye contact again and his expression looked calmer, but Colin's hands were also fidgeting in his lap, although that wasn't necessarily indicative of anything. Some people always fidgeted, and with some it was only when they didn't that it was cause for concern. Perhaps Colin's hands always fidgeted. Bruce couldn't honestly say definitively one way or the other; he just didn't know the kid that well.  
  
"I wanted to– what I came here for– I mean- " Colin started, in a tight voice and with repeated stops and corrections. "What I mean to say is, thank you," he finally got out. Color appeared on his cheeks as he blushed. Bruce tried not to look amused.  
  
Instead, he nodded in what he hoped was an encouraging way and just waited for Colin to finish getting off his chest whatever it was that was so obviously bugging him.  
  
"You've been really nice. You've helped us a lot, and I- I- " Colin dropped his head down again. He visibly took a deep breath and then said in a clear voice, "I've been awful to you. Back in Metropolis, you came to help, and you have, and I've just been—just a jerk." Another sigh.   
  
Bruce waited, but Colin seemed at a standstill, so he cleared his throat to get the boy's attention. Sure enough, those eyes locked on his and Bruce tried for an easy smile. Something open.  
  
It felt weird.  
  
"You weren't that bad," he said, "and I understood. A lot has happened." Bruce paused, raised his eyebrows and held on to Colin's eyes. "No one expects you to be perfect or on your best behavior, certainly me least of all. You were upset; you still are. This place, this city, this house: all of it's unfamiliar and unsettling and that's putting it—mildly."  
  
Colin smiled at that, humorlessly and bitterly, but a smile nonetheless.   
  
"I'm still sorry though," Colin said. "You didn't deserve that, didn't- it wasn't- I didn't mean it towards you," he eventually said, quite loudly in fact, and looking somewhat shocked at the words once he'd finished, but he'd rallied again. Bruce had to hand it to him; Colin was no coward. He'd come here to apologize apparently and so far hadn't backed down, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable or even painful it must've been for him. Hell, this was weird for Bruce, and he was on the other side of things. Colin was, and always had been, right in the middle of it.   
  
"I know you didn't," Bruce told him quietly, "and that's why no apology is necessary. Not to me."  
  
But the boy just shook his head, seeming angry all of a sudden. "You keep saying that: 'not to me,' " he parroted back. "What's that supposed to mean? Not to you, but to someone else? Never to you? I was an ass, and the very least I can do is apologize for that—especiallyto you."  
  
Colin was still looking at him, and now it was Bruce who felt the urge to look away and fidget. He wanted to break that eye contact, so he kept looking just to spite that coward inside. Bruce held Colin's eyes and for some reason quirked his lips up again in another attempt at smiling.   
  
If the look that came over the boy's face were any indication though, the attempt failed. Colin looked equal parts confused and repulsed.   
  
Bruce stopped smiling and settled on nodding his head instead.   
  
"Well, then your apology is accepted," he finally stated, tired of arguing the point. "And you are most welcome to any help I can give you. It's my honor to do so."  
  
Colin nodded and then looked away towards the window over Bruce's right shoulder. The light was getting dimmer, and when Bruce checked the clock on his desk, he saw it was already nearly six o'clock in the evening. Alfred would have dinner ready in another hour, and by now Lex and Nick were already holed up in Rick Jameson's house in Metropolis, most likely going over the details of tomorrow's custody hearing. Knowing Lex, that's probably all they'd be talking about until well into the night.   
  
Colin was quiet across from him but made no move to leave or continue the discussion, so Bruce simply went back to his many forms and printouts. He signed and initialed and read over numerous documents for what seemed like forever but in reality was only about half an hour. And all the while there was Colin across the desk from him, sitting there with his fidgeting hands and looking out the window.  
  
When Bruce finished his stack, he shuffled the papers and slid them into the folder. Then he looked over at his guest.   
  
"Penny for your thoughts," Bruce offered into the silence. Colin didn't immediately look over, or respond, but his mouth quirked up again.   
  
"Do you prefer winter or summer, Bruce?" the boy eventually asked.   
  
"Haven't much preference for either one, really," he answered. "More of an autumn man, myself."  
  
Colin nodded, still smiling that strange little humorless smile of his.   
  
Feeling the question was a cue, Bruce figured turnabout was fair play. "What about you? Summer or winter?"  
  
"Winter," was the immediate response. Colin's eyes weren't on Bruce, but this time it didn't seem due to any hesitance on his part. This time, Bruce just thought that whatever it was Colin was seeing out that window, it was simply more interesting than Bruce's face.  
  
"The snow?" Bruce guessed, turning in his chair and noticing the fat flakes that had started to fall outside. He turned back around just in time to catch another one of those little smiles. This one looked especially bitter.  
  
"I can count the number of times I've seen real snow on one hand, and still have fingers left over." Colin then glanced at Bruce, but went right back to staring out the window. At the snow.

Bruce swallowed. "The Centre?" he asked.  
  
Colin nodded, distractedly. "Only had that second winter at home and part of one a few years ago. Otherwise. . . " And he let that dangle, as he shrugged.   
  
Bruce felt cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of his office. He swallowed, then, summoning up some painful material of his own, said, "I recommend a snowman, in that case."  
  
Colin's head jerked back in Bruce's direction and the look on the boy's face was, in no uncertain terms, priceless. "What?" he asked, sounding nothing so much as utterly bewildered.   
  
"Wait until the morning," Bruce told him seriously, "and then take your brother outside and build a snowman. That's something you won't forget."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Written per request (A day in the park with little Lex, Lin and Lillian, something sweet and short for the boys to remember).

It was difficult to keep a straight face, to stop herself from reaching out and hanging on to them both. Alexander was doing an admirable job with the little boy, and they did look darling together, but she also found it somewhat of a novel experience, and that made her cautious. Her little prince, often so uncertain and terribly desperate for any sort of validation or reassurance, was now confidently telling this small child the ins and outs of a merry-go-round. She didn't quite know what to make of it, truthfully.  
  
She'd never been prouder of her son. Alexander was the soul of kindness and generosity with little Colin, always suggesting ways to make the child more comfortable and welcome.   
  
"Here," he was saying to the little boy, "climb up here. Yeah," and Alexander held Colin's hand as he too moved onto the merry-go-round after him. "See?" Alexander asked, bending over a little to look the boy in the face. "It's nice, right? And it has all these hand-holds to hang on to. You just wrap yourself around one or two and hold on, while it spins."  
  
Lillian watched a discreet distance away as Colin turned his head to whisper something to Alexander. Such a quiet child, that one, and she couldn't put it down to any specific behaviors, but little Colin was also very worrying to her, in general. The more she thought on it, the more certain it seemed that little boy over there was showing textbook signs of trauma and grief. She was no psychiatrist or therapist, but she damned well knew what sadness and depression looked like, and that little boy over there. . .  
  
Well, it made her remember why she'd married Lionel. To take in such a child and adopt him, offer him so much and in the process give their Alexander some much needed self-confidence? Lionel was a good man underneath. He didn't let anyone see, not even Lillian apart from a handful of occasions, but Lionel was capable of so much kindness when he just set his mind to it. He did good things all the time, and mostly for the right reasons. He'd brought Colin into their home. He'd provided a wonderful life for Lillian and Alexander, and during the bad times, well, they'd always had only the best doctors at hand. Lionel wasn't afraid to spend that money of his, not on her and not on their son. And now Colin was part of the family too. They'd  love him, and maybe someday soon the poor thing would overcome that dark cloud of his. Alexander's was already dissipating. She saw him smile every day now, bright, real smiles, and it hadn't been so long ago that she'd thought her son incapable of ever being happy again.   
  
"She will," Alexander said, and Lillian blinked and focused back on her boys in the here and now. Alexander was looking at her, that knowing little smile of his on his face, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what was expected of Lillian at the moment. She smiled back and closed the distance between them. Placing one hand on a metal pole of the merry-go-round, and the other on her hip, she switched between smiling at Alexander and trying to catch Colin's eyes.   
  
"Something I can do for you, boys?" she asked, cheekily.  
  
"You'll spin us, won't you, Mom?" Alexander asked, and it didn't escape her notice that one of her son's hands was still tightly gripping one of Colin's.   
  
"Well, of course I will!" she exclaimed, and moved her other hand up to hold the metal bar also. "What else are moms for?" Alexander virtually beamed at her and her comment even elicited a slight smile from Colin. "I don't think you're ready, though," Lillian countered, pointedly looking at how the two boys were simply standing straight up on the merry-go-round. "You're certainly not going to last very long, standing like that. . . "  
  
"She's right," Alexander whispered to Colin. Then the two of them went about the process of wrapping themselves around the metal beams, and Alexander eventually looked back up at her, nodding. "We're ready," he told her seriously.  
  
"Then hold on tight, angels," Lillian warned, as she started to push the merry-go-round, "because here we go!"

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's Bruce being Bruce, and an especially woobie one at that. But, with him already getting seriously hurt in CFMWH, I hardly thought it good writing to injure him again so quickly. Although, that would probably be pretty realistic. I'm sure the man gets hurt a lot, leaping around and getting into fights on a nightly basis. But, eh, it didn't work.

First, it was just a sprain, and he worked through it.   
  
Then, three nights later, he misjudged the distance down off a rooftop and wound up breaking it in an effort to keep his face away from the concrete. The rest of patrol was a disaster, if only because his wrist throbbed and burned constantly. It distracted him, and when the sun was just about set to rise, he knew he would have been better off just calling it quits hours ago, rather than persevering.   
  
He climbed carefully into the Tumbler and it was another adventure simply trying to drive back to the manor. Down in the cave, it was quiet and damp and dark. Bruce tugged off Batman's cowl, and then the left gauntlet, followed by the glove. His wrist was discolored and swollen and hot. It was so bad that Bruce could actually see the broken bone pressing against his skin. He could see where what should be whole was most definitely not.   
  
He wasn't ashamed that he cried, but he wasn't proud, either. It's what happened when pain was part of the equation. It was a natural response to a certain series of stimuli. Bruce's wrist was broken, so he cried.  
  
Then, less than five minutes later, he stood back up and went about taking off the rest of Batman's suit and dressing in his own.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is my attempt at Chloe. The end result isn't what I originally had planned, which is most likely why I don't like it all that much. However, it does serve as a good summary of who Chloe is in this universe. She's still super-reporter woman, with few boundaries and that damned insatiable curiosity. This story also serves as the fun outsider POV that gives you guys a little heads-up in terms of how most people perceive the Luthors and their goings-on. It was fun to tweak and rearrange canon, combining aspects of and events centered around both SV Lex and SV Clark into one poor Lucky. But, it's too self-indulgent; it serves no real purpose. I still think it's interesting, and I'm putting it up here for you guys (if anyone still gives a damn), but in the end I'm glad I axed it.

She wasn't the type to cry over stupid, trivial things. She saved her tears for the moments that really counted. And, afterward, she didn't dwell on it. A pint of ice cream and her stuffed rabbit, Boomerang, were all she really ever needed to put herself back together. Brand-spanking-new. Right as rain.   
  
She didn't cry at sad movies or sad songs. She wasn't a sympathetic crier, either, and dear Lois had once told her that made her seem cold. Well, too bad, she thought. Tears didn't really do any good. Better a good ear and some helpful advice than a weepy, nodding  _girl_ for others' troubles. That's what Chloe always figured.   
  
She'd cried when she was little. She'd cried a lot when her dad had been sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands. He'd been crying quite a bit then too, though, so that was understandable.  
  
She'd cried when she'd broken her wrist in sixth grade.  
  
She'd even cried when Tommy Arias had broken up with her right before the Spring Formal freshman year.   
  
But she was a highly intelligent, educated woman of the 21st Century. She didn't weep at the drop of a hat. She hated women like that.  
  
_"I thought-- I thought maybe, when I woke up that it was. . . I thought it might come true," he was saying. Another tear rolled down his face."A year's gone by. Maybe that's all this was supposed to last for. Maybe_ **this** was the dream. Or a wish. . . and it ran out."  
  
"I've always wanted to a pet a dog. I think it'd be nice."  
  
"I guess my best friend growing up would be Lin. I'm not sure. I never had anyone else to talk to. Is that what a 'best' friend is?"  
  
"Strawberries are delicious!" he said, eyes wide in surprise. He took another bite, and then licked his lips, and still he didn't smile.  
  
"No, nothing's wrong," he tried to assure her. One more look down at the white shirt she'd bought for him and another shiver shook through his entire body. "It's nice," he whispered, eyes far, far away. "It's very nice."  
  
"I'm not sure what to give him. He likes art. Would that be appropriate? Do I take it to him, do you know? Or have someone else do it? What do I say if I give him the present?"  
  
And that was her bane. That was the exception that proved her tough-broad rule: a skinny, pale boy with brown hair and some of the strangest eyes she'd ever seen. He was the one who made her cry like a little girl, who made her sniffle and feel about 10 years old all the time.   
  
Lucas made her cry. He did. He really did. She'd wasted hours crying over that boy, and not in the good, love-struck way, either. Nothing so romantic as that.   
  
Chloe cried when she put it together: the little things Lucas did, the strange things he said, the way he acted, all of it. She cried at him sitting half-naked in the snow outside his own house, two days before Christmas. She cried at hearing him scream in his sleep, and she cried a whole lot when she heard it again the next week, and four days after that, and then later again that same month.  
  
She cried when he was shot and she was dragged away from him. She cried more when she was able to hug him again two days later, and he seemed like a completely different person.  
  
She cried and stomped around and even threw Boomerang across the room before rushing after him and squeezing him tightly for another half hour's worth of bawling.  
  
Because she was a highly educated woman who knew the ways of the world. Because she read the news and, even more importantly, knew how to read between the lines. Not everything was printed. Not everything was fit for public consumption.  
  
She researched and compiled and double-checked. She hacked and dug. She did it all by herself without letting anyone,  _anyone_ , know and least of all Lucas. She finished when she couldn't find anything more. The file wasn't open any longer. Chloe had made sure of that. She hadn't saved anything.  
  
She just needed to know. She needed to, if only so she could help and understand. She was just bumbling around in the dark with him and his blank past, and she had the distinct feeling she was knocking things over and making a mess of everything. She didn't want to do that. She liked him, loved him even, and whether it was unintentional or not, she somehow kept hurting him. She made mistakes she didn't know were mistakes. She said things that caused him pain or embarrassed him. She made him sad when he'd. . . well, when he'd at least been okay. Lucas was never happy, really, but sometimes he was something very like it.   
  
Sometimes, he smiled. A few times, he'd laughed. Chloe loved those moments, even if they made her want to cry, too.   
  
Too few. Too far in between. Not enough smiling, not for such a nice person. Lucas deserved to be happy, and he wasn't, and Chloe wanted to help fix that.  
  
She just didn't think it would lead to an infinite number of unanswerable questions.   
  
Start at the beginning, she'd always been told. Work your way through, and keep any opinions out of it. Stay objective and, when in doubt, go with your gut.   
  
So she started at the beginning, with the oldest. Easy enough.  
  
That one led her into a false sense of security and ease. Lex Luthor was actually surprisingly easy to get a read on. Tabloid fodder was one thing, but the Daily Planet was quite another. It also helped that Chloe had once dated someone who knew people in the Metropolis DA's office. It helped that she still had an envelope of cheap Kodak pictures showing that person on the end of a leash as a furry. Let him explain quirky Homecoming traditions when it was to his current girlfriend he was doing the explaining. Hah. Chloe'd met Veronica. Pete would get eaten alive.  
  
So, one down, three to go. No problem, right?  
  
Wrong. Dead wrong. The second in line, official last name and everything, was even more of a mystery than her Lucas, possessor of an unofficial last name, as she found out. Colin Luthor, a.k.a. Lin, had almost everything in order, but that was it. No school records, except one semester of classes at some boarding school, and even that turned out to be a bust. No grades. He had two semesters at Met U, but then nothing more. Driver's License and Social Security were both a check, but there was no birth certificate. Adoption records were nonexistent for this one, too, which simultaneously intrigued and frustrated her. She'd actually managed to dig up  _Lucas'_  adoption forms, but somehow this other guy's were nowhere to be found?  
  
And it just got stranger the further down she went.  
  
Where both of his brothers were at least partial reads, Lucas was pretty much an impossible one. She found adoption papers, and even a classroom roster from when he would've been, like, six years old and in first grade. But after that?  
  
Nothing. Zilch. Nada, right up until a few years ago. Lucas' name first popped up again, from what she'd been able to find, at the father's funeral. Lionel Luthor. World Class Scumbag.  
  
Oh, yeah, there was a whole lot on  _that_ guy, but nothing Chloe was really too interested in reading. She remembered well enough the headlines from around that time. It'd been her freshman year, and she'd practically run the school newspaper by herself that first year, if only because all the other people had graduated back the previous spring and no one else had wanted it. She'd been really into "checking out the competition" back then, too, and The Daily Planet was her main focus. She'd wanted to see how it was done, know the professional angle.  
  
Well, that probably hadn't been a good year to judge. For roughly three months in the fall, it'd been all horrible stuff about just. . . awful,  _awful_ things that Lionel Luthor did to his sons. Then, right around Christmas it was the big obit and funeral coverage and tons of speculation about the future of the family company. Chloe'd been sick of it by the time March had rolled around.  
  
She could remember rolling her eyes at yet another article about the company formerly known as Luthorcorp the same morning she'd first met Lucas.   
  
There was another brother, Julian, but he seemed pretty cut and dry. Rich kid in a rich boarding school until about October of 2001. After that, it'd been private tutors, it seemed, until in 2004 he was enrolled in the North Gotham Academy of Excellence. Again, rich kid in a rich boarding school, complete with birth certificate, Social Security number, up-to-date medical history, and an underage driver's license. Julian was the least mysterious of the bunch.  
  
In the end, with no records and what she'd heard from the horse's mouth, Chloe pretty much figured out the truth herself. Lucas had said he'd dreamed of being "back there," dressed in white with little to no hair. He was incredibly sheltered in terms of popular culture and the more social aspects of life. He hated doctors, and the color white, and whenever someone said, "That's crazy," Lucas got the strangest expression on his face.  
  
So she looked into things and then trashed it all. She deleted all evidence from her computers and shredded all the hard copies. Chloe was absolutely thorough. She left behind no traces.   
  
And when Lucas still had his horrendous nightmares, and he still acted so incredibly weird. . . well, Chloe knew better now from where it all stemmed. She made excuses for him when it was necessary and just listened when he needed that. She offered advice and made suggestions.  
  
She was his friend, his best friend. And he was hers. Besides Tracy way back in third grade, Chloe hadn't ever really had any friends. She hadn't needed any, either. Family was better. Friends just got in the way.  
  
But Lucas didn't. He was a tough read, true. He kept a lot to himself, but Chloe knew the truth and she understood and didn't question him about it. She was an educated woman, and she knew how to talk to people, all kinds of people. She was accepting.  
  
And then Lois came into the picture, and Chloe had to have a long debate with herself over whether or not to tell her cousin just what type of guy she was getting involved with.  
  
Lucas was her best friend, after all, even after all these years. That might not be true for him so much anymore, but it still was for her. But Lois was. . . Lois. She always leaped before she looked, and Chloe didn't want her to get hurt just because she'd--   
  
Well, if it'd been something else, maybe it would've been easier to ignore. After all, how often was it that someone spent more than 12 years in a mental institution, only to then go on and become one of the head honchos of a multi-billion dollar corporation?  
  
It wasn't easy. Being friends complicated everything, and the truth was Chloe never  _had_ made any promises.  
  
Still. It wasn't like she had all that many friends that she could go around throwing away any of the ones she did have.   
  
So she knew. She'd figured it out.   
  
She just hoped Lois did too before it was too late and something bad happened that she hadn't meant to cause. Lois had a way of doing that.   
  
But then again, bad seemed to follow Lucas around, too. Maybe they'd balance each other out, or something.  
  
Or just end up in life and death situations  _together_ every week.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Why not have the (arguably) two most fucked up characters in the Colin Luthor 'Verse having a nice, fucked up bonding moment? I give you a Thanksgiving race taking place during the holiday briefly mentioned in Clouds Up.

He checked the left mirror quickly and then leaned until he'd switched lanes. Another light was up ahead, but he was almost certain he had enough time at his current speed in which to make it. The roaring behind him increased in volume and Bruce glanced over into his mirror again. Responding to the body language, he went farther to the left in the lane and just barely managed to block the other motorcycle, preventing it from passing him.   
  
Lucas would have to do better than that.   
  
Bruce smiled.  
  
There was the light, and Bruce was just entering the intersection when it switched to yellow. He roared through it, the two cars in front of him making left turns and leaving the way clear. Bruce increased his speed and shot forward, but Lucas kept right on his tail. Past the intersection, the streets of uptown Gotham began to widen as they moved closer to the freeway system. Lucas managed to switch into the other lane and fast came even with Bruce. They both looked over at each other at the same time, and Bruce wondered if Lucas were smiling inside his helmet, too.   
  
Then he increased the pace a little, just as a semi truck signaled and began to slow down for a turn-off in front of Lucas. Another look back in his mirror, and Lucas was behind him in the lane again. They were doing 85 mph at the moment, and when the Ford Taurus in front of Bruce switched into a different lane that speed increased. Over 90, and he swung out around a Corolla and passed it right on the white of the lane divide. Horns honked and then honked again, and Bruce glanced at his mirror again. Lucas was matching his pace exactly, following his every move.   
  
Bruce smiled again.  
  
He dodged around a minivan to pass a new model VW bug and then increased his speed a little in order to get past a semi truck. The 56 junction was up ahead, and their two lanes now would soon widen up to five for a stretch before going back down to three. Bruce glanced down, 94 mph, and then back, Lucas still behind him, and then he veered around another two cars and shot up alongside one of the Metro Lines buses. More horns sounded at the junction, and when Bruce looked in his mirror he didn't see Lucas.   
  
At one point in the mess of the junction, he spotted another motorcycle. Wrong make, though, and moving nowhere close to his speed. Adrenaline made Bruce's hands sensitive to the slightest change in grip and pressure, let him anticipate drivers' moves effortlessly, allowed him to float in a sea of exhaust, noise, and chaos, and do it all while moving at 95 mph. For that stretch of road, five lanes wide and a hundred cars deep, Bruce was invincible.   
  
Then the lanes went down to three, and he had to brake in order to avoid a sedan with no plates as it switched lanes right in front of him without signaling. By the time he'd successfully weaved his way around a league of defensive holiday drivers, Bruce was down to a jerky 50 mph. There was still no sign of Lucas, either, but he wasn't all that worried. He'd hate to lose the race, but that was about it. If anyone were capable of finding his way to the manor on his own it'd be Lucas.  
  
Eventually, Bruce glided off the freeway and on up the road to the Palisades. A few cars, one unfortunate stretch limo, and a gigantic SUV comprised all the traffic he encountered on the last leg back. Just within eyesight of the manor, snow began to fall, and Bruce made the decision to rope Colin into going back out and looking for Lucas if the kid weren't already home. At the gate, though, as Bruce brought his bike to a stop and braced it up with his legs to lean over and punch in the front access code, a sudden noise behind him caught his attention. He hit the last number in the sequence and then, as the gate started opening, looked over his shoulder back at the road.  
  
And then Bruce started laughing because  _just_ as the gate cleared the path up to the manor, a red motorcycle sped past him in a blur, zooming up the drive and coming to a screeching halt right in front of the main entrance. Bruce laughed and laughed, at one point giving up and laying his head down on the dash of his own bike as he struggled to catch his breath in between bouts of laughter. Perfect timing, down to the  _last second. Perfect_.  
  
Finally, probably a good minute or two later, Bruce got it together enough to finish the race. He rode up right next to Lucas, bracing the motorcycle while he cut it off and then kicking the stand down. Then he looked over and took off his helmet, watching as Lucas did the same.  
  
They just sat there looking at each other, and then Bruce grinned.   
  
"'Lucky,' huh?" he quipped, and in response Lucas smiled, really smiled, those eyes of his brightening and the set of his mouth relaxing. "Now I know where the nickname comes from."  
  
And Lucas, well, he just kept right on smiling that happy smile of his, eventually saying, "You should see me play poker," at which point, a large white snowflake landed on his nose and Bruce burst out laughing again.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: How Batman and Catwoman meet in the Colin Luthor 'verse.

Two men are lingering around the mouth of the alley, so he stays to see what they're plotting.  
  
They're always plotting. Men like that have nothing else to do, nothing else they *want* to do. Destroy, only destroy. Never rebuild, never help.  
  
He catches movement down on the left, and turns to see it properly. A dark figure is slowly sliding its way along the brick of the alley, creeping up on the two thugs at the mouth.   
  
He stands and mirrors the shadow's progress below with his own on the rooftop. When there's less than two feet separating the figure from the targets, Batman pushes the cape out behind and above him and jumps.  
  
One man screams, the other attempts to flee before he's even landed, but the shadow. . .   
  
The shadow *grins* and smoothly pulls its arm back behind itself. Batman blinks and, in the fraction of a second it takes for his eyes to reopen, the shadow's arm is now suddenly extending forward and something is passing by the side of his head so quickly he doesn't even have time to react.  
  
A woman's deep laughter rings out and echoes around the alley, followed a second later by a cut-off male screech. When the shadow makes as if to move past him, Batman intercepts it, first grabbing the whip with his right hand, and then taking hold of the wrist wielding it in his left.   
  
He doesn't jerk the whip, even though the urge to do so is excruciating. One of the men is held by it, the other having fled probably the equivalent of four city blocks by now.  
  
He looks down at the shadow, and the woman inside the costume is still grinning up at him unrepentantly.  
  
"If you wanted to fight, all you had to do was wait your turn," she purrs, moving her body closer and simultaneously managing to slip her wrist from his grasp. He pulls the whip out of her hand before she can get a chance to use it again, and doesn't hesitate to use force on her.  
  
Batman drops the whip's handle to the ground and reaches out for the shadow's throat. He gets her pinned to the alley wall securely, but when her smile just gets wider, he looks down. . .   
  
And nearly gets his eyes gouged out when one of her hands comes flying up, sharp steel affixed to the end of every finger. He can't protect himself and keep her immobile at the same time, so with an angry growl he pushes away from the wall. She's instantly going for the whip, but he slams his boot down onto its end, rendering it useless.  
  
"Damn you!" she hisses, and the grungy light from the street lamps shines down on her. He can see her.  
  
"Leave," he orders, and in response she spits on him.   
  
There's another moan from the mouth of the alley, and he can feel her glance back that way the same time he does. The thug is lying in a puddle, face down, and her whip is still wrapped so tightly around his throat even now, that if neither of them intervenes, the man will surely suffocate to death sometime in the next minute or two.   
  
Batman turns back to the cat woman, and she looks up at him from where she's crouched, waiting to retrieve her fallen weapon from under his boot.  
  
"You don't move," she says, "that man's not going to be around much longer. Is he?" she adds coyly.  
  
He has to decide what to do, quickly, and so goes to kick out at her. She predictably moves back, out of his reach, and that's when Batman sticks his hand down as quickly as possible and grabs the handle of the whip. He makes a mad dash towards the choking man, and just as he reaches him, he's tackled to the ground when she jumps him from behind.  
  
"Give it!" she shouts, stabbing at his torso with one hand while making frantic grabs at the whip with the other. "It's mine, you son-of-a-bitch!"  
  
He's managed to finally unwind the tail of the whip from the thug's neck, and the cat woman's claws sink into him one last time before she's pulling back. The whip is clutched in her hand and she sends it slamming down into him in revenge. Then she's laughing again, darting back into the shadows she came from.  
  
The man next to him moans and wheezes, and when Bruce looks down at himself, he sees trickles of blood coming from the holes she'd made. She'd hit his sides hardest and deepest, where the plating isn't unbroken, and down his front he can he see the scratches where she'd tried to disembowel him.  
  
"You bastard," the thug moans.  
  
"Shut up," Batman tells him, climbing to his feet and kicking the guy in the head just hard enough to knock him unconscious.


End file.
